MORNING CONSTITUTIONAL 06/20/11

Summer heat has driven the Great Lakes’ mightiest mammals inland to escape the boiling surface water. I’m talking Lake Bears and Water Skinks. Being mammals, they must come up for air every so often. That means passing through the top thirty feet of clear water that, due to temperatures, could boil most pastas in under thirty minutes.

Oh it’s true. And horrible for property values. The Lake Bears are especially dangerous. Not so much when they’re on land. They mostly just lay about drinking sap and eating whatever you throw onto the compost heap. No, what’s really treacherous is their arrival.

Wanting to spend as little time passing through the boiling zone as possible, the Lake Bears use their hind fins to gather speed in the dark, bleak lake depths, shooting out of the water like rockets and without care or concern for their landings. The thick layers of blubber coating their undersides protects the Lake Bears from harm. Their impact, however, thanks to the curse of physics, is enough to crash through most sunrooms, enclosed patios and carports. Individual autos don’t fare much better under the weight of a plummeting Lake Bear, further contributing to the area’s terrible insurance rates. Even a lowly Water Skink can crush a jungle gym with the wrong impact angle.

The mayor’s water surface netting hasn’t solved anything so this August we’re voting on whether to drain the lake entirely and declare ourselves Victims of God’s Hatred. That’s a legal classification I understand comes with substantial federal compensation.